h8omb

Is it me or has Meredith been wearing that Dijon mustard-coloured cable knit sweater constantly for the last two or so years? I'm honestly starting to wonder if there's some Sixth Sense style plot twist coming that she's actually been dead since she left for Boston and that's why we always see her in that same sweater.

I just started watching this episode and it occurs to me that Luther has hardly done anything useful this season at all. For the supposed number one, he seems like a lot of dead weight right now.

I binged this over the last couple of days and loved it! So many people have the perception of doctors that they are arrogant, dismissive, and don't really listen to patients but I know and have worked with physicians who are incredible people and don't fit that stereotype at all. I really liked all of the doctors profiled here, but I think Amanda was my favourite. I felt like her personality hit the right balance of confident and gentle to put an anxious birthing woman at ease.

Owen and Teddy making out in that supply closet was not hot in the slightest.

My main takeaway from this episode was that GSMH apparently doesn't have or follow proper protocols on reporting suspected abuse, managing aggression and violence in the workplace, or addressing mental health concerns in employees.

Their few short scenes together only reinforced my opinion that Meredith has better chemistry with Tom than with anyone else the writers have attempted to pair her with since Derek. What a missed opportunity.

The promo with "I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you," playing over a bunch of emotional flashbacks and the title of the episode (Leave a Light On) make me think they might be killing Alex off by suicide or overdose due to some previously unmentioned mental health or substance use problem.

When we first met Perez (I think that's his name?) at Pac North, I honestly assumed the guy playing him was a fan who had won some sort of contest for which the prize was a walk-on role on an episode of Grey's Anatomy. The acting was that bad. But now he's at GSMH? With a band of misfit interns who are apparently all terrible? Great.

Referring to Koracik? Each specialty has it's own Chief -- Chief of Surgery (Bailey), Chief of Internal Medicine, Chief of Oncology etc. even though we never see them. Koracik is Chief of them all. It's not quite this. Each department chief at Grey Sloan reports to the Chief of Surgery (Bailey). Koracick has some sort of Chief position for the entire Fox Foundation, so the Chiefs of Surgery at all Fox Foundation hospitals report to him. How someone with such wide-ranging responsibility has time to be doing individual interviews for jobs at one hospital on about one day's notice is unclear.

So this woman has been institutionalized for 20 years and her doctor thought it would be a great idea to reintroduce her to her daughter with Benson and Rollins standing right there gawking at her?

Amelia saying that Linc is an "easier softer way" is a bad omen for the two of them. That phrase ("easier softer way") is from the AA Big Book- alcoholics are always looking for an easier softer way, but it never works. I was really put off by how rude Owen was to the therapist with his snotty, "I don't believe in all this holistic voodoo," nonsense. Most therapists have treated resistant patients so I'm sure it's nothing the guy hasn't heard before, but could Owen really not behave like a normal professional adult? Or just find his own therapist who uses a modality he actually believes in, rather than just going to the same therapist as his sister? But hey, he had a major breakthrough about childhood trauma in his first therapy session, so I guess it all worked out! The fact that Owen just discovered that apparently all of his issues trace back to his father's untimely death when he was a kid (just like Amelia, which we were reminded of last week) makes me really concerned that they're going to try to revive Owen and Amelia's relationship. Ugh.

I thought she had a lot of chemistry with that judge she treated last season and wanted to see them get together (professional ethics of dating a patient notwithstanding), so naturally he died at the end of the one episode he was in.

Just rewatched the season 3 episode where Susan leaves and it also has that really fun scene with Lydia and Al getting married in the ER. Chuny walking by in the middle of the ceremony yelling "anyone got that stool culture?!" was funny and the whole thing really highlighted how likable most of the characters were in the early seasons. They were believable as a bunch of "in the trenches" healthcare workers who had known each other for years and genuinely liked each other despite their professional differences of opinion and workplace spats.

Yikes, that website is pretty bad. A small investment to improve it would probably go a long way. Are they not allowed to mention MasterChef because of copyright or something? They say Beccy "took on an incredible journey" and "after weeks of team challenges, pressure tests, and eliminations... brought her home with the title" but the website doesn't actually refer to MasterChef at all.

Abbie's family seemed pretty normal and functional and they followed the intervention protocol really well but the level of involvement her daughter's father had in Abbie and her family's life was shocking. She endured years of brutal and sustained violence from him and he comes over to her parents' house every night to put their daughter to bed?! It's bad enough that he only spent 48 hours in jail for what he did to her and on top of that he seems to have legal access to his daughter that requires the family to essentially open their home to him on a regular basis. And then he goes and delivers that tepid "apology" at the intervention with a smirk on his face. Disgusting.

Abbie escalated into a full blown alcoholic after years of physical and mental abuse from her boyfriend. Her parents are raising her daughter while Abbie lives nearby with a new boyfriend who enables her addiction. Her alcoholism has gotten so bad that Abbie already has chronic liver, kidney, and bone marrow damage. Without help, Abbie's family fears that her daughter will lose her mom for good.

Legal marijuana, sexual assault, and white supremacists. Could this episode have been ripped from the headlines any harder?!

Jessica Capshaw Talks Grey's Anatomy Season 14 Apparently "a huge surprise is in store" for Arizona.

When Steph and the rapist were approaching Ben I kept thinking of that episode of ER where Sam's abusive ex similarly made her smuggle him out of the hospital and she tried to alert Abby by calling her Abigail. I was thinking "Call him Benjamin, for God's sake, look him right in the eye and call him Benjamin! He'll know what it means; everyone knows what that means!"

I had completely forgotten that Riggs exists until his brief scene with Minnick. Why is he on this show?

My enjoyment of this show is distributed as follows: 80% Greg and Jen; 19% Matt and Colleen; 1% the ever-present Mai Tai in James Brolin's character's hand.

So did whatserface get the role as Minnick just because she's Scott Foley's wife and Shonda Rhimes is fond of Scott Foley? Because literally nothing else makes sense. She's not a good actress. Not gonna lie though, that scene with her and Arizona was kind of cute. Also, when Bailey started crying in the scene outside with Richard (hey, is that rain in Seattle?!) I almost strained something rolling my eyes. My greatest hope for the remainder of this season is that we see a proper Chief of Surgery installed. Hell, put Richard back in the role. When Richard and Owen were CoS they were always at the forefront of a catastrophe, directing everyone's actions and coordinating. An angry mob at the doors to the ICU never would have happened under either of them. Meanwhile, Bailey was in surgery all day and had no idea what had happened. She's a surgeon, not an administrator.

As a standalone episode this was... fine. Not terrible, but nothing memorable. There are so many characters who have backstories I would love to learn more about and Meredith, Richard and Owen aren't among them. Alex had a mentally ill parent and grew up in foster care and group homes. Jo apparently also grew up in foster care and ultimately ended up living in her car and putting herself through medical school. Arizona grew up gay in a military family and lost her brother in combat. Jackson grew up in a wealthy, powerful family with biracial parents and was abandoned by his father when he couldn't handle the pressure of his life. Maggie was adopted at birth and was some sort of child prodigy who was bullied in school and ended up graduating college at 18 or something outrageous like that. Riggs has an interesting backstory (albeit closely tied to Owen's) but I barely even remember that he's on the show anymore. There is so much untapped potential in so many characters. I love Richard, like Meredith, and am indifferent at best on Owen, but we've already looked into all of their pasts in detail. They were all strange choices for this episode, in my mind.

I'm kind of excited for the return of Leah Murphy. I suspect that this has more to do with Shonda Rhimes' fondness for Tessa Ferrer than for Leah Murphy. The great thing is that given the circumstances under which Leah left, she can return with a whole new personality and easily explain it away. When she walked away from GSMH she had just been kicked out of the surgical residency program and had her heart stomped on by Arizona. It certainly stands to reason that she could have done some major soul-searching in the last few years and we'll see a whole new Leah Murphy walk through the door, giving Shonda and Co. an opportunity to recycle a likable actor in the same role but with a better personality. How often does a show-runner get that chance? I assume she's here to play Arizona's love interest; if not, we're looking at some major cast bloat since that character still needs to be introduced. I would have preferred the return of Hilarie Burton, but this will do in a pinch.